Bill Gates Praises India’s Sweeping Digital ID System as a Model for Other Nations

Reclaim the Net reported:

India’s digital ID system may have its critics among those opposed to the digitization of people’s identities, but it has received praise from Bill Gates as one of the country’s innovations that are “changing the world.”

Gates, as well as EU and UN officials, refers to such systems as digital public infrastructure (DPI) — a buzzword for the introduction of digital ID and payments by 2030.

Gates announced on his blog that he is visiting India, and made sure to note that the Gates Foundation is involved in what he calls “efforts that are saving millions of lives.”

This is a reference to India’s production of another of Gates’ “passions” — vaccines. As for DPI, Gates expressed his “admiration” for the country’s massive biometric identity DPI component, Aadhaar, and the fact that over 12 billion transactions are processed by it.

Supreme Court Questions Florida and Texas Social Media Laws on First Amendment Grounds

CNN Business reported:

The Supreme Court on Monday appeared to have deep concerns of state laws enacted in Florida and Texas that would prohibit social media platforms from throttling certain political viewpoints.

The high-stakes battle gives the nation’s highest court an enormous say in how millions of Americans get their news and information, as well as whether sites such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok should be able to make their own decisions about how to moderate spam, hate speech and election misinformation.

The state laws ban online platforms from removing posts that express opinions, such as political content. States say the laws are necessary to keep the social media platforms from discriminating against conservatives.

One of the central themes of debate that emerged during the course of the arguments was whether social media companies are engaged in First Amendment-protected activity when they moderate content, such as by deplatforming users for posting misinformation or hate speech.

Cruz, GOP Senators Double Down on Anti-Central Bank Digital Currency Legislation

FOXBusiness reported:

Senate Republicans are determined to restrict the Federal Reserve’s ability to create a so-called central bank digital currency, setting the stage for making the debut of a digital dollar an issue for the 2024 presidential campaign, FOX Business has learned. Conservative lawmakers have been doubling down on their opposition to a central bank digital currency (CBDC), arguing the federal government could weaponize the technology by using it to spy on Americans’ financial activity and potentially restrict access to their money.

The Biden administration has sanctioned the Fed to conduct extensive research into the issuance of a CBDC as a way to make payments cheaper and more accessible to Americans, although no decision has been made to implement one.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee, told FOX Business that he and four Senate colleagues, including Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Rick Scott, R-Fla., Ted Budd, R-N.C., Mike Braun, R-Ind., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., will sponsor a new bill called the Central Bank Digital Currency Anti-Surveillance State Act.

The legislation, which Cruz will introduce in the Senate on Monday, says the Federal Reserve lacks the authority to issue a CBDC, a digital version of the dollar, to Americans without authorization from Congress.

Why Healthcare Has Become a Top Target for Cybercriminals

The Seattle Times reported:

When a cyberattack hit Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center late last year and exposed the personal data of nearly a million patients, many were caught off guard, stunned a breach could infiltrate such a large and highly resourced healthcare organization.

But those working in computer security weren’t surprised. In recent years, they’ve watched other hospitals and healthcare facilities across the country get hit by similar attacks, some of which have crashed systemwide operations and caused delays in patient procedures or tests, or rerouted ambulances to other emergency rooms.

Cyberattacks of all sorts have plagued large corporations, small businesses and individuals for decades now, but in the past several years, health care has become a top target, according to federal and local cybersecurity experts. These organizations hold a massive amount of patient data — including medical records, financial information, Social Security numbers, names and addresses. They’re also among the few businesses that stay open 24/7, meaning they might be more likely to prioritize avoiding disruptions and, therefore, more likely to pay a hacker’s ransom.

In December, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that the medical data of more than 88 million people was exposed in the first 10 months of 2023. The department also saw a 93% increase in large, healthcare-related breaches reported to the agency between 2018 and 2022.

Mark Zuckerberg Is Arguing He Can’t Be Held Liable for Kids’ Instagram Addiction Just Because He’s the Boss. He May Be Right.

Insider reported:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is arguing he can’t be held personally liable for accusations that his platforms have led to kids being addicted to social media — and he may have a point.

Zuckerberg‘s legal team was in court in Oakland, California, this week over a string of lawsuits filed against Meta and him personally by parents and schools that allege his actions and Meta’s have harmed children by causing social media addiction, NBC Bay Area reported.

Zuckerberg has requested he personally be dropped from the two dozen lawsuits, which were filed by people from over a dozen states. A ruling in the billionaire’s favor would excuse him from being held personally liable but would not dismiss the cases against Meta.

The lawsuits claim that Zuckerberg’s actions and inaction led to social media addiction and accused him of ignoring warnings that Facebook and Instagram were unsafe for kids.

Vending Machine Error Reveals Secret Face Image Database of College Students

Ars Technica reported:

Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent.

The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, “Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe,” displayed after the machine failed to launch a facial recognition application that nobody expected to be part of the process of using a vending machine.

The Reddit post sparked an investigation from a fourth-year student named River Stanley, who was writing for a university publication called MathNEWS.

Stanley sounded the alarm after consulting Invenda sales brochures that promised “the machines are capable of sending estimated ages and genders” of every person who used the machines — without ever requesting their consent.

‘Disinformation on Steroids’: Is the U.S. Prepared for AI’s Influence on the Election?

The Guardian reported:

Examples of what could be ahead for the U.S. are happening all over the world. In Slovakia, fake audio recordings might have swayed an election in what serves as a “frightening harbinger of the sort of interference the United States will likely experience during the 2024 presidential election”, CNN reported.

In Indonesia, an AI-generated avatar of a military commander helped rebrand the country’s defense minister as a “chubby-cheeked” man who “makes Korean-style finger hearts and cradles his beloved cat, Bobby, to the delight of Gen Z voters”, Reuters reported. In India, AI versions of dead politicians have been brought back to compliment elected officials, according to Al Jazeera.

But U.S. regulations aren’t ready for the boom in fast-paced AI technology and how it could influence voters. Soon after the fake call in New Hampshire, the Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on robocalls that use AI audio. The FEC has yet to put rules in place to govern the use of AI in political ads, though states are moving quickly to fill the gap in regulation.

The U.S. House launched a bipartisan task force on Feb. 20 that will research ways AI could be regulated and issue a report with recommendations. But with partisan gridlock ruling Congress, and U.S. regulation trailing the pace of AI’s rapid advance, it’s unclear what, if anything, could be in place in time for this year’s elections.

Forget Voice Prompts — I Just Answered a Phone Call Using Nothing but My Eyes

TechRadar reported:

Back in October, I reported on Honor’s Apple Vision Pro-style eye-tracking technology, which had just been teased in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it segment at Qualcomm’s annual Snapdragon Summit. At the time, Honor used a series of animations to demonstrate how and why this eye-tracking tech might be used, but at MWC 2024, I was able to get hands-on (or eyes-on?) with this decidedly Blade Runner-esque smartphone feature.

Billed as an imminent upgrade for the newly announced Honor Magic 6 Pro flagship, this eye-tracking tech is tucked away inside the phone’s Magic Capsule digital pop-up, which is essentially Honor’s take on Apple’s Dynamic Island.

By leveraging the Magic 6 Pro’s front-facing camera tech and facial recognition smarts, Magic Capsule is able to recognize the users’ eyes and draw navigational information from the direction of their gaze. I took the feature for a spin at MWC 2024, where I was able to answer a phone call using nothing but my eyes.

Indeed, certain app-based eye-tracking functions have already begun rolling out on Chinese versions of the Honor Magic 6 Pro, with international versions of the device — which are set to begin shipping from March 8 — confirmed to receive eye-tracking “in the future.”

America Owes Its Troops Compensation for Unfair COVID Vaccine Mandates

Fox News reported:

Every American soldier who signs up to put their lives on the line for our country deserves a debt of gratitude. Tragically, as a result of deeply unfair and political COVID-19 vaccine policies by the Biden administration, tens of thousands of our nation’s finest have been treated by our government more like adversaries than the true heroes they are. It’s time this grievous injustice was finally addressed.

The absurdity of this political overreach into our military was clear from the start. In August 2021, Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate that directed soldiers to receive only fully FDA-licensed vaccines. This was more about virtue signaling than substance. At that time and for nearly a year after the order was issued, the Department of Defense did not even have any fully FDA-licensed vaccines.

As a result, thousands of service members — who wanted nothing more than to serve the country — were punished for being unvaccinated even if it was impossible for them to comply with the order. Many were devout Christians who had simply requested reasonable accommodation for their sincerely held beliefs.

Without any form of due process, troops were discharged with severe misconduct codes that prevent reenlistment and denial of veterans and retirement benefits. To add insult to injury, those who were discharged were told they were now in debt for reenlistment, service academy tuition, or GI Bill benefits that can amount to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Long after President Joe Biden publicly declared “the pandemic is over,” soldiers continued to have their lives ruined by this policy. And even after the Department of Defense finally ended its COVID-19 vaccine mandate in 2023, the damage from this outrageous and ill-conceived policy did not end there. Tens of thousands of healthy soldiers remained kicked out of the military.

ABC to Face Trial Over ‘General Hospital’ Firings Tied to COVID Vaccine Mandates

The Hollywood Reporter reported:

ABC must face religious discrimination claims from two former General Hospital crewmembers who sued the network after they were fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccination, marking one of the first rulings to clear the way for trial over terminations caused by blanket vaccine mandates widely imposed by studios amid the pandemic.

A Los Angeles judge, in an order issued Tuesday, found that James and Timothy Wahl may have had “sincerely held” religious beliefs that ABC should have accommodated by affording them exemptions and allowing them to follow safety protocols implemented before mandatory vaccination policies were rolled out.

The ruling comes on the heels of ABC defeating a similar lawsuit from Ingo Rademacher over his dismissal from General Hospital for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Unlike with crewmembers who were not in close, unmasked contact with others, the court found in that case that it was impossible for unvaccinated actors to safely work on set during the pandemic due to the nature of their work.

Meta’s Zuckerberg Seeks out of Lawsuits Blaming Him for Instagram Addiction

Bloomberg reported:

Mark Zuckerberg is seeking to avoid being held personally liable in two dozen lawsuits accusing Meta Platforms Inc. and other social media companies of addicting children to their products.

The Meta chief executive officer is set to make his case at a hearing Friday in California federal court. A ruling in Zuckerberg’s favor would dismiss him as a personal defendant in the litigation with no impact on the allegations against Meta.

Holding him personally responsible may be a challenge because of a corporate law tradition of shielding executives from liability, especially at larger companies where decision-making is often layered. A victory against the billionaire who launched Facebook with friends as a Harvard undergraduate two decades ago could encourage claims against other CEOs in mass personal injury litigation.

Zuckerberg faces allegations from young people and parents that he was repeatedly warned that Instagram and Facebook weren’t safe for children but ignored the findings and publicly stated the opposite was true. Plaintiffs contend that as the face of Meta, Zuckerberg has a responsibility to “speak fully and truthfully on the risks Meta’s platforms pose to children’s health.”

Instagram and Facebook Knowingly Platform Parents Who Sexually Exploit Children for Profit, Say Reports

The Verge reported:

Investigations into “child influencer” accounts on Facebook and Instagram have found that Meta is knowingly allowing parents who sexually exploit their children for financial gain on the platform — and in some cases, using Meta’s paid subscription tools to do so.

According to separate reports published by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Facebook and Instagram have become a potentially lucrative endeavor for parents who run social media accounts for children — mostly girls — who aren’t old enough to meet the platforms’ minimum 13-year-old age requirements.

Several of the “parent-managed minor accounts” investigated sold materials to their large audiences of adult men, including photos of their children in revealing attire, exclusive chat sessions, and their children’s used leotards and cheer outfits.

The Times also highlighted the company’s inadequate moderation attempts, noting that Meta responded to just one of the 50 reports the publication made regarding questionable content featuring children over a period of eight months. One internal study conducted by Meta in 2020 and revealed in court documents found that 500,000 child Instagram accounts had “inappropriate” interactions every day.

Nova Scotia Health to Lift COVID Immunization Requirement for Employees

CBC News reported:

Nova Scotia Health and IWK Health are set to lift a requirement for employees, preferred candidates and on-site medical staff to submit proof of primary series COVID-19 immunization beginning Feb. 26, 2024.

In an email to CBC News on Wednesday night, a spokesperson for Nova Scotia Health said the decision was made “in response to evolving evidence regarding COVID-19, Omicron sub-variants, protection from vaccine and a review of vaccination policies across other jurisdictions.”

NSH confirmed the change in policy after a letter to an employee was posted on social media earlier in the day. The letter advises the employee, on unpaid leave for not meeting the COVID-19 immunization requirements, that they could return to work as of Monday.

The letter goes on to direct the employee to notify their manager of their intent to return or resign by March 15.

Phone Swipe Sounds Can Capture Fingerprints, U.S.-China Research Shows

Newsweek reported:

A team of American and Chinese researchers claims to have found a way to exploit a vulnerability in a widely used biometric authentication method used to secure smartphones. The researchers say their study is the first to use the sound of a user’s swipe to infer their fingerprint and that it “rings the alarm bells” over personal, and even national security.

In the wrong hands, such technology could threaten a wide range of people without their knowledge.

The finger movements of online gamers, for example, could be detected via microphone as they interact with other players. Users of social media platforms like Facebook or China’s WeChat are also at risk of having their fingerprint patterns collected and synthesized.

Biometrics like finger scans and facial recognition are widely trusted as means of securing mobile devices. A forecast released last April by Acumen Research predicted the fingerprint identification market would skyrocket from $12.7 billion in 2022 to nearly $100 billion by 2032.

Facebook Whistleblower, AI Godfather Join Hundreds Calling for Deepfake Regulation

The Hill reported:

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and one of the “godfathers” of artificial intelligence (AI), Yoshua Bengio, were among hundreds who signed an open letter Wednesday calling for deepfake regulation.

More than 400 AI experts, artists and politicians signed the letter, which urged governments to pass laws criminalizing deepfake child pornography and establishing criminal penalties for those who knowingly create or facilitate the spread of harmful deepfakes.

The letter also suggested software developers and distributors be required to prevent their products from creating harmful deepfakes and be held liable if their measures are too easily circumvented.

Deepfakes — which the letter describes as “non-consensual and grossly misleading AI-generated voices, images, or videos, that a reasonable person would mistake as real” — pose growing risks as AI technology has become more widely available.

Florida Passes Strict Social Media Restrictions for Minors Despite DeSantis’ Misgivings

Politico reported:

The Florida Republican-led House overwhelmingly passed legislation Thursday to create the strictest social media prohibitions in the country by cutting off anyone under 16 years old from many platforms despite some objections from Gov. Ron DeSantis.

House members voted on the bill mere hours after it was backed by the Senate in a surprise move that procedurally could force DeSantis to act sooner on legislation that he has been skeptical of for weeks. Because the Legislature passed the bill, FL HB1 (24R), with two weeks remaining in session, DeSantis would have to either sign or veto the measure before lawmakers leave Tallahassee.

The Republican governor has raised particular concerns about the legislation not giving parents a say in whether their children should be allowed on social media. But lawmakers were unwilling to add a carve-out to the bill that could allow some minors to access social media despite the threat of DeSantis’ possible veto.

Florida’s legislation would require some social media platforms to prohibit anyone younger than 16 from creating an account and mandate that they use a third party for age verification services. While other states have attempted similar ideas, Florida goes further by not giving parents an opportunity to allow their children to bypass the potential law.

The Big Tech Show: Are We Sleepwalking Into Mass Surveillance? Garda Bodycams and Facial Recognition Technology

Irish Independent reported:

Are we rushing the introduction of garda bodycams and facial recognition technology? How will they work? And is there a danger that they might profile us? On this week’s episode of The Big Tech Show, Adrian chatted with practicing criminal defense barrister and vice chair of the Justice Committee, Fine Gael Senator Barry Ward.

Adrian began by asking if facial recognition technology would lead to a dystopian society or if it would be useful in prosecuting crime. Senator Ward highlighted that facial recognition technology is already in use in Ireland but may not be used in law enforcement.

The technology is currently in use with passport biometrics and is used by the Department of Social Protection in Ireland. The politician made the point that this is not something new but an increased utilization of the new system.

Gardaí expects the trial of body cameras, limited to a handful of garda stations in Dublin, Limerick and Waterford, to be operational by the summer.

Chinese Filmmaker Charged Over Documentary About COVID ‘White Paper’ Protests

Hong Kong Free Press reported:

A mainland Chinese filmmaker has been charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” over a documentary about the rare nationwide protests against the government’s strict COVID-19 restrictions in late 2022.

Chen Pinlin, known by the pseudonym Plato, was arrested in Shanghai on January 5 after releasing a film on the “white paper movement” to mark one year since the protests, Chinese human rights group Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch said. The movement was named for the blank sheets of paper — a symbol of censorship — that protesters held up.

He was detained at a facility in Shanghai’s Baoshan District and charged last Sunday with the catchall “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” offense, the group said. The charge is commonly used against those who criticize the regime or discuss topics considered politically sensitive.

The white paper movement saw anti-government protests span major cities in China in late 2022. The demonstrations were sparked by a fatal fire in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, in which lockdown rules under China’s zero-COVID policy were said to have hampered escape and rescue efforts. Protesters were arrested, although there are no official figures showing the scale of police action.

Google to Start Running ‘Prebunk’ Ads and Quizzing YouTube Viewers to Fight So-Called ‘Misinformation’

Reclaim the Net reported:

Prebunking — until relatively recently it was just one of the fringe concepts in the relentless “war on misinformation industrial complex.” A short way to describe it is as a dystopian version of debunking false or incorrect information. But here the idea is to stop users’ (“help them identify”) unwanted content before they can even see it.

A short way to describe what’s wrong with the “war on misinformation” is that it all too easily turns into a smokescreen for plain censorship of lawful and factually correct speech.

And now, prebunking is moving from ideations pushed by murky “fact-checking” and similar outfits to the very top of the mainstream — Google.

The company that in effect controls the search market and some of the largest social platforms in the world (outside China) has announced that its latest anti-misinformation campaign will incorporate prebunking.

Your Brain Needs a Really Good Lawyer

Vox reported:

If you take it for granted that nobody can listen in on your innermost thoughts, I regret to inform you that your brain may not be private much longer.

You may have heard that Elon Musk’s company Neuralink surgically implanted a brain chip in its first human. Dubbed “Telepathy,” the chip uses neurotechnology in a medical context: It aims to read signals from a paralyzed patient’s brain and transmit them to a computer, enabling the patient to control it with just their thoughts. In a medical context, neurotech is subject to federal regulations.

But researchers are also creating noninvasive neurotech. Already, there are AI-powered brain decoders that can translate into text the unspoken thoughts swirling through our minds, without the need for surgery — although this tech is not yet on the market. In the meantime, you can buy lots of devices off Amazon right now that would record your brain data (like the Muse headband, which uses EEG sensors to read patterns of activity in your brain, then cues you on how to improve your meditation). Since these aren’t marketed as medical devices, they’re not subject to federal regulations; companies can collect — and sell — your data.

With Meta developing a wristband that would read your brainwaves and Apple patenting a future version of AirPods that would scan your brain activity through your ears, we could soon live in a world where companies harvest our neural data just as 23andMe harvests our DNA data. These companies could conceivably build databases with tens of millions of brain scans, which can be used to find out if someone has a disease like epilepsy even when they don’t want that information disclosed — and could one day be used to identify individuals against their will.

COVID Vaccine Mandates May Have Had Unintended Consequences, Researchers Say

CIDRAP reported:

U.S. state COVID-19 vaccine mandates didn’t significantly change uptake, and states with mandates actually had lower COVID-19 booster and voluntary adult and child flu vaccine coverage than those that banned vaccine requirements, an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data suggests.

Researchers from the University of Arizona at Tucson and Furman University in South Carolina parsed the data to identify changes in COVID-19 vaccination rates and COVID-19 boosters and seasonal flu vaccines in the 2 months before and after implementation of state-level mandates for targeted groups (eg, state employees). Baseline attitudes were collected before the vaccine rollout as part of the COVID States Project.

A series of multilevel models were tested to compare state-level differences in weekly COVID-19 booster uptake from rollout in November 2021 to May 2022 in mandate states and in the 22 states that outlawed such mandates. The results suggested that the percentage of eligible residents who received a booster was smaller in mandate states than in those that banned mandates. The difference was greater among states with lower vaccination levels.

“This research supports the notion that governmental restrictions in the form of vaccination mandates can have unintended negative consequences, not necessarily by reducing the uptake of the mandated vaccine, but by reducing adoption of other voluntary vaccines,” the study authors wrote. “More broadly, the results underscore the challenges of promoting public health through vaccination.”

Brash Tech Lobby Drives Social Media Battles to Supreme Court

Bloomberg reported:

After California passed a law forcing digital platforms to adopt privacy guardrails and safety standards for young users, Carl Szabo had a blunt warning for legislators attending the nation’s biggest conference for state policymakers: “The lawsuits are coming.”

Over the past decade, Szabo and his colleagues have transformed NetChoice, their small, right-leaning lobby known for its brash tactics, into Silicon Valley’s litigation powerhouse. With Meta Platforms Inc., TikTok Inc., and X Corp. among its members, the Washington-based trade association’s won injunctions against laws regulating social media in five states.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear challenges on Monday to the constitutionality of the Florida and Texas laws. Each was introduced by Republican legislators after social media platforms suspended accounts supporting the January 6 Capitol attack, and aimed to prevent companies from “censoring” posts.

The spotlight reflects NetChoice’s outsized role in a free-speech debate that’s drawn increasingly more political, legal, and governmental scrutiny, from state capitols to Congress. Critics paint the group as an attack dog willing to “weaponize” the First Amendment in a bid to stop any internet regulation — bringing cases in a way that shields its members from having to take a public stance. Some cite its successful challenges to laws governing how platforms treat underage users.

Ohio Continues Facial-Recognition Searches Using Controversial Photo-Collection Firm Clearview AI

Cleveland.com reported:

State crime investigators’ use of facial recognition software, once put on hold because of civil liberties concerns, could now continue through at least 2025 with the help of a company that has faced multiple lawsuits over claims it stockpiles massive amounts of photos without permission.

Last September, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office signed a two-year contract with New York-based Clearview AI. The $38,780 contract allows up to 25 Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation officials to conduct facial-recognition searches using the company’s database, which includes billions of photos obtained from publicly available sources, such as news media, mugshots, and social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

Clearview AI, founded in 2017, has repeatedly been accused in court of amassing it huge database of photos from websites without the consent of the people portrayed in them.

Supreme Court Turns Away House GOP Lawmakers’ Appeal Over Mask Rule Violations

The Hill reported:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to revive a lawsuit from three House Republicans after their pay was docked for not complying with a pandemic-era mask requirement on the chamber floor.

In a brief order without any noted dissents, the court let stand a lower ruling that tossed the constitutional challenge filed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).

The three conservative lawmakers were fined $500 in May 2021 after flouting the House floor mask mandate that was put in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, kicking off a years-long attempt by the trio of lawmakers to get the penalties lifted.

House rules fined lawmakers $500 for their first infraction with the mask mandate and $2,500 for subsequent breaches to be withdrawn from their yearly pay. Greene racked up more than $100,000 in fines, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which the Georgia Republican referenced in a statement on Tuesday.

TikTok Facing Threat of EU Fines in Digital Content Clampdown

Bloomberg reported:

TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. risks heavy European Union penalties under tough new content rules for Big Tech after regulators announced a formal investigation into its alleged failure to protect minors who use the video-sharing platform.

EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton announced Monday that TikTok will face a formal investigation under the bloc’s flagship Digital Services Act — which empowers regulators to levy fines of as much as 6% of annual sales or ban repeat offenders from the EU.

Breton said on X that the bloc’s probe will home in on TikTok’s addictive design and screen time limits, its privacy settings, and the social media platform’s age verification procedures. Bloomberg previously reported that the formal investigation was in the offing.

Teenagers the Biggest Losers of COVID-Era School Closures

The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

Teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds are still struggling to make up lost ground years after pandemic-era school closures, while experts warn the full impact of 1.2 million children missing out on months of in-person learning remains unclear.

The Sydney Morning Herald convened a panel of top educators to assess the impact of COVID-19 on students after the federal government failed to include the decision to close schools in its independent inquiry into how the nation managed the pandemic.

“It could take years before we see the full effect of closures, but for disadvantaged students it could impact their whole lives,” said Peter Shergold, a former top public servant and chair of the NSW Education Standards Authority.

Shergold said there is an obligation for governments to examine the social and educational damage as a result of school closures, which stretched for seven weeks in 2020 and more than three months in 2021.

Australian Education Research Organisation chief executive Jenny Donovan said high school students were among those most affected by school shutdowns, with early evidence from check-in assessments showing they fell three months behind in their learning.

Neuralink’s First Human Patient Able to Control Mouse Through Thinking, Musk Says

Reuters reported:

The first human patient implanted with a brain chip from Neuralink appears to have fully recovered and is able to control a computer mouse using their thoughts, the startup’s founder Elon Musk said late on Monday.

“Progress is good, and the patient seems to have made a full recovery, with no ill effects that we are aware of. The patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking,” Musk said in a Spaces event on social media platform X.

The firm successfully implanted a chip on its first human patient last month, after receiving approval for human trial recruitment in September.

The study uses a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink has said, adding that the initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts.

Artificial Intelligence Is Making Critical Healthcare Decisions. The Sheriff Is MIA.

Politico reported:

Doctors are already using unregulated artificial intelligence tools such as note-taking virtual assistants and predictive software that help them diagnose and treat diseases.

Government has slow-walked regulation of the fast-moving technology because the funding and staffing challenges facing agencies like the Food and Drug Administration in writing and enforcing rules are so vast. It’s unlikely they will catch up any time soon. That means the AI rollout in healthcare is becoming a high-stakes experiment in whether the private sector can help transform medicine Unlike medical devices or drugs, AI software changes. Rather than issuing a one-time approval, the FDA wants to monitor artificial intelligence products over time, something it’s never done proactively.

President Joe Biden in October promised a coordinated and fast response from his agencies to ensure AI safety and efficacy. But regulators like the FDA don’t have the resources they need to preside over technology that, by definition, is constantly changing.

And the problem for the FDA goes beyond adjusting its regulatory approach or hiring more staff. A new report from the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog arm of Congress, said the agency wants more power — to request AI performance data and to set guardrails for algorithms in more specific ways than its traditional risk assessment framework for drugs and medical devices allows, the GAO said.

Medical Group Files Supreme Court Brief Against Biden Administration’s Online Censorship Pressure

Reclaim the Net reported:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) has formally voiced its opposition to the way the Biden administration handled free speech during the pandemic.

This specifically concerns censorship around COVID-related information and collusion with Big Tech, currently being explored in the Murthy v. Missouri Supreme Court case.

AAPS has filed an amicus brief, to support the claim that the current U.S. administration and some of the biggest tech companies unlawfully worked together — either because of pressure on the latter or willingly on their part — to censor Americans.

This organization gathering medical professionals believes that if the goings on during the pandemic are left without legal consequences, more of the same, only involving different issues, will follow.

House COVID Panel Leader Threatens to Subpoena HHS for Lack of Cooperation

The Hill reported:

The chair of the House panel investigating the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to subpoena Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials Friday over a lack of cooperation with the committee’s investigation unless they answer another round of specific questions.

In a letter sent to HHS Assistant Secretary for Legislation Melanie Egorin, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) expressed frustration with Egorin’s recent public testimony and what he said was a persistent lack of cooperation from the agency on producing documents related to the virus’s origins, vaccine messaging and policies about COVID closures.

“We know, for a fact, that the Department is currently withholding critical documents. The Department’s failure to provide the requested documents is unacceptable,” Wenstrup wrote.  If the agency doesn’t respond to the latest requests for information in a way that Wenstrup finds satisfactory, he said the panel “will evaluate the use of the compulsory process to obtain the testimony of Department employees who know the answers to these questions.”

As part of its investigation, Wenstrup’s panel has also heard closed-door testimony from the nation’s former top infectious diseases doctor, Anthony Fauci, and the former National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins. Fauci is expected to testify publicly later this year.

‘There Are No Serious Safeguards’: Can 23andMe Be Trusted With Our DNA?

The Guardian reported:

Last week, 23andMe reported dismal third-quarter fiscal results, tanking stocks in the company, CNBC reported. Its financial woes come down to a longevity problem: the company’s most famous offering, the DNA ancestry test, is a one-and-done deal. After taking the test, there’s no reason for consumers to keep spending money on 23andMe, which has led to a plateau of sorts.

From 2018 to 2023, 23andMe partnered with the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, using customers’ genetic information to help develop drug targets. (A drug target is a molecule that plays a role in a disease; researchers use them to develop therapies for certain diseases.) This year, the partnership became non-exclusive, which means 23andMe can strike deals with more pharmaceutical companies to milk more money out of its DNA trove.

23andMe already has two cancer drugs undergoing drug trials; those drugs came from users’ genetic data. But 23andMe users may not understand that the spit they gave the company months or years ago is being used to make more money.

Healthcare Data Breaches Hit 1 in 3 Americans Last Year: Is Your Data Vulnerable?

USA TODAY reported:

Patients were inundated with spam texts and other annoyances after the massive HCA Healthcare data hack disclosed last July compromised the records of more than 11 million people.

The HCA theft was the largest hospital breach in 2023, a year in which about 1 in 3 Americans were affected by health-related data breaches. The number of attacks has surged in recent years. They’ve typically been carried out by organized hackers, often operating overseas, who target the computer systems of health providers and the vendors and companies that serve them. Most of the largest hacks targeted vendors who bill, mail or provide other services for hospitals, doctors and other health providers.

Last year, a record 133 million health records were exposed in data breaches mainly carried out by hackers who’ve attacked health providers and their vendors, infiltrated computer systems and demanded ransom or other payments. An average of two health data hacks or thefts of at least 500 records were carried out daily last year in the United States, according to an analysis by The HIPAA Journal.

Reddit Signs $60 Million Deal to Scrape Your Online Community for AI Parts: Report

Gizmodo reported:

Reddit reportedly signed a $60 million deal with a “large AI company” to allow its online communities to be scraped for AI training data, according to Bloomberg on Friday. The unnamed AI company will sift through millions of posts on Reddit, and train a large language model on Reddit’s threads.

Reddit is reportedly weighing an IPO with a $5 billion valuation, despite only bringing in $800 million in revenue last year. Reddit is not profitable but has a rich valuation because its online communities offer a perfect training ground for AI models.

However, licensing out your user base’s thoughts and ideas is not always reciprocated well. The most popular subreddits went dark in protest last year after users took issue with the company charging for access to its application programming interface (API), first announced in April of 2023.

Reddit’s reported deal with an “unnamed large AI company” is exactly what the platform has been looking for. Big Tech is hungry for data, and that has turned legacy news organizations, community forums, and even the University of Michigan into mere content farms. These deals, though upsetting to users, offer Reddit a path to profitability.

U.S. House Forms AI Task Force as Legislative Push Stalls

Reuters reported:

Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives said Tuesday they are forming a bipartisan task force to explore potential legislation to address concerns around artificial intelligence.

Efforts in Congress to pass legislation addressing AI have stalled despite numerous high-level forums and legislative proposals over the past year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the task force would be charged with producing a comprehensive report and consider “guardrails that may be appropriate to safeguard the nation against current and emerging threats.”

Security Camera Startup Wyze Apologizes for a Breach That Allowed 13,000 Customers to See Into Other People’s Homes

Insider reported:

Security device company Wyze has apologized to customers after a camera breach let an estimated 13,000 users see into other people’s homes.

The Seattle-based company, which specializes in smart-home products and wireless cameras, blamed the incident on an “issue from a third-party caching client library” that was recently integrated into its system.

The company has suffered breaches before. In 2019, a Wyze data breach was discovered by cybersecurity firm Twelve Security and reported on by The New York Times.

The personal information of 2.4 million Wyze customers was exposed on the internet for 23 days. The data included people’s usernames, emails, WiFi details, and health information, the reports said.